Word: phoning
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...pretty much used to being wired by now. The real travail is in the actual use of our phones. When the phone rings, nobody knows what...
...third ring, I begin to think that maybe nobody else is home after all. I make a mad dive for the phone, not wanting to have to run upstairs to turn the answering machine off when the fourth ring comes...
...person who's calling usually doesn't realize that five people have answered the phone. He or she thinks there's just some funny echo in the phone line. So they say, for instance, "Can I speak to Jim?" and Jim says "This is he" and the rest of us slink away...
...exactly the same wavelength. It so happens that the pause between rings is exceedingly long in our room. Thus, I often pick up the receiver toward the start of the third pause and am already engrossed in conversation when one of my roommates gets around to answering the phone at what they mistakenly think is the tail end of the long-gone pause. In such cases, a "Hello?" suddenly punctuates my discourse, and I usually decide it's easier to say I'm schizophrenic than to explain what's really going...
...should not imply that I possess a monopoly on phone-awkardness in my suite. My roommates have also created a problem or two for me, getting on the line in the middle of a call. My conversations are thus regularly punctuated by clicks and clacks of all sorts...